The time is coming when you will need to make a choice about whether you get the Covid-19 vaccine. Perhaps you have already received it maybe even a second dose. Or perhaps you have declined to take the vaccine.
Mankind’s rule over creation because of disobedience to the Creator is now broken, damaged, and incomplete. The world and every creature in it groan from the futility we live in. Part of that brokenness and futility is sickness and disease. Which brings us to the pandemic. We now are at about 400 thousand deaths; it is out of control. We may soon reach the number of deaths of the Spanish Flu at the turn of the century with over 600 thousand deaths.
2020 has been a year of upheaval. No doubt God is at work in many ways, most we can’t see or comprehend. Hi providence and sovereignty are pervasive. Historically God has used plagues and pandemics to reset history, bring down nations, bless and punish people and people groups. Perhaps we are being disciplined for our sin as it is clear God’s passive wrath is upon us.
So we come during all the adversity and difficulty of life right now to all too real question of will you and I get the vaccine?
I personally know almost 20 people in my community that have died from Covid-19. It is real, not a hoax, not a conspiracy.
Our God didn’t walk away and permit a fallen broken creation to overwhelm our first forefather and mother. Instead as a God of mercy and love he permitted humanity to get the necessary sustenance and knowledge from the earth that we need to survive. God then allows the knowledge and experience we gain to make life more endurable and long lasting. Technology and medicine are good things, good gifts, if they are used to the glory of God and the benefit of others. Saving lives with medicine and technology is certainly God-honoring as the Bible upholds the sanctity of every human life.
I personally have benefited form modern medicine having had 4 cancers in the past 25 years. I would not be alive had it not been for God’s grace through medicine. I ma sure many of you can praise God for similar mercies.
Vaccines then like other treatments are a gift from God. A vaccine basically gives the patient a non-dangerous amount of that organism, so the body can create immunological response/memory before it encounters the actual organism/virus.
So if I choose not to be vaccinated due because some aspect of the vaccine conflicts with my biblical principles, I could unfairly judge the decision of another Christian to vaccinate as wrong or sinful. Judgmentalism is a dangerous sin when it comes to conscience issues. The Holy Spirit always gives more grace than we do so we must turn to him in prayer asking for the grace to allow for another opinion.
From an ethical perspective the production of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines do not use cell lines from aborted babies.
So what will you do?
I will be taking the vaccine when the time comes. Everything I have seen indicates that it was safely developed (in record time) and safe to receive. Some people will be unable to take it for medical reasons and others, perhaps you will choose not to take the vaccine. Nevertheless I will be doing my part to help curb the death toll in our country.
In his Sovereignty God controls every viral particle and pandemic that spreads over the earth now and in the future. It very well could be that he uses these vaccines to rid the world of this dangerous disease through all of us his image bearers. God has allowed us to do it with many other disease’s smallpox for example. Let us all pray he allows it again with COVID-19.